


Laughing with a Mouth of a Blood

by Aria_i_Adagio



Series: Whatever I've Done - First Draft [1]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Bad Decisions, Bipolar Disorder, F/M, Female Apprentice (The Arcana), Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Plague, Pre-Canon, Prologue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-06-25 23:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15651414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aria_i_Adagio/pseuds/Aria_i_Adagio
Summary: Drabbles, expansions, extensions, additional scene type things that are pre-canon or go with the prologue.  Tags and ratings will be updated as needed.





	1. Meet Cute?

The countess leaves the shop.  I close the door behind her, wondering why I had agreed to her proposal and what would happen if I simply didn’t go to the Palace.  Part of me was legitimately intrigued, and part of me knew that it would be good if I didn’t let myself get bored while Asra was gone, but a third, whiny part of me really just wanted to lose myself in a book a few bottles of red wine for the next couple of weeks while Asra wasn’t around to make me do things like adhere to a relatively set sleep schedule.

“Strange hours for a shop to keep.”

I jump at the voice and my eyes dart around the shop, peering into the dancing shadows created by the lamps.

“Behind you.”

I turn.  A figure, easily taller than I am by a foot and change, leans against the back counter of the store, wearing a beaked mask, bone white, red glass in the place of eyes.  My heart pounds in a chest that feels as though it is shrinking by the moment and a high pitched ringing builds in my ears. My toes have become roots, sunk into the floor, holding me in place.  The ringing in my ears swells to a peak, and - suddenly - I collect myself enough to dart for the back room, the door leading out into an alley a chance at escape.

The figure catches me about the waist.  I flail wildly, landing a kick, and the beaked figure drops me with a grunt.  I hit the floor hard, rolling and knocking my head against the door frame.

He peels off his mask and holds out a placating hand.  “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. At least, not that much.  How - how badly did you hit your head?” He kneels down and leans over me.  Under the mask, his face is pale and angular, one eye a lovely gray, the other covered by a patch. He'd be handsome - perhaps - if he got a few good meals and a bit of sleep into him.  He extends his hand toward me again as if to push back the hair that has fallen into my face. I curl my upper lip into a snarl and glare at him. He sits back on his heels looking stymied.

“Look, I only want to know where your master is, and I'll leave you alone.  My sources say this is the witch's lair these days.”

I push myself into a sitting position.  The room spins around me as I do, and I close my eyes, leaning back against the doorframe.  “I'm not telling you anything.”

“Protective of him?”  The unknown man laughs.  “You shouldn't be. He'll take what he needs and leave you to rot if it suits him.”

I shake my head.  Mistake. Even with my eyes closed I feel like I'm underwater and can't find the surface.  “Asra’s not like that.” Shouldn't of used his name, and I can hear the s and the r slurring together as I do.

“Oh hell, either you've been drinking or you did hit your head hard.  Listen, I know you don't trust me - and you shouldn't trust me - but I’d, um, feel a lot better if you'd let me see how badly you’re hurt.”  His hand pushes my hair out of my face. I don't move to fight him off. His touch is gentle; I don't think he has any intention of hurting me, at least not any further.  Besides, my mind is moving too slowly to recall any defensive or offensive or really any spells. “Damn. That is a bump. Really, I'm really sorry about that.” There's a rustling of fabric and his hand returns to the side of my face, bare skin this time, warm for a moment and then flaring icy cold.  As the cold fades, so does the ache in my head, the ringing in my ears and the general disorientation.

I open my eyes and slowly rise to my feet.  Any effects of hitting my head are gone. The man crouches at my feet pulling a glove back over his right hand.  He looks up at me and grins, red brown hair falling around his face in waves. “Feel better, my dear?”

“Please go.”

“Ah.”  He puts a hand on the counter and uses it to pull himself upright, wavering a bit on his feet before he finds his balance.  “I’d still like to know where the witch is.”

“Wouldn't we all?”  I can't kept the bitterness out of my voice.  The man raises his eyebrows at me in surprise.  “I'd like for you to leave now.”

“Hmm.  Maybe we should ask your cards.”  He pushes past me into the reading room, clearly familiar with the layout of the shop, and sprawls in a chair that is too small for him, long legs extended on both sides of the table.  “He's redecorated a bit. That creepy skull is gone.” 

Presumptuous.  “If I do a reading, will you go away?”

He turns in his seat and smiles at me.  “Promise.” He winks as well, but with the eye patch it doesn't really work.

With a sigh, I sit down across from him and shuffle the cards, dealing them on the table between us and indicating that he should choose one.  He looks me in the eye as he turns the card over. Death.

“Death.  Ha. Death cast her gaze on this poor wretch and turned away.  She has no interest in an abomination like me.”

“Don't be so quick with your interpretation.  The cards aren't always literal. Death symbolizes many things.” I pause and let my fingers hover over the card.  “A new beginning, inevitable as these things are, but one that's been purified of the sins of the past.”

The man gives me an odd look, then stands.  “Some things are not so easily justified.”

“Who said anything about easy?”

“Hmm.”  He steeples his fingers under his chin and looks at me, an odd expression on his face.  “Have we met before? No, surely I'd -” His voice trails off and he stands to leave. Intrigued by his response, I follow him out to the main room. “Listen, shopkeep, the witch, he's taught you his tricks, maybe he even cares about you.  But, when he returns, seek me out. He's far more dangerous than you know.”

“I don't even know who you are.”

He bends to pick his mask out of the floor.  I shudder as his movement reminds me of its presence.  Stepping back and to the side, I put the counter between me and the hideous, awful thing.  He gives me an odd look, then tucks the mask under his overcoat instead of putting it back on.  “Julian. You can call me Julian.” He pushes open the door to let himself out and looks back over his shoulder.  “I really am sorry that I scared you so, my dear.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [follows the whole chase down guards in animal costumes, rowdy raven, courtiers, conversation via fountain with Asra thing... Why not go back to the Rowdy Raven when you can’t sleep?]

“Mind if I sit here?”

A very surprised Julian looks up at me as I set my drink down next to his.  “Not at all. I wasn't expecting to see you again tonight.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” I sit down next to him and throw back the double shot of harsh liquor I held in my head, chasing it with the significantly better beer.  Julian looks vaguely impressed. After my bizarre conversation with Asra at the fountain, I had gone back to my room and tried to lay down. Then I had tried pacing to burn off the nagging wrongness - something missing - I felt deep in my bones.  Finally, I had decided that Palace or no, I'd simply fall back on my usual strategy for coping with insomnia and existential dread: wine, music, sex - anything to deaden the roar of my mind. Given the odd way the garden and the field wrapped around this city, this place was actually closer than my usual haunt near the shop.  And, certainly, more interesting. As I had suspected, business had picked right back up once the Palace guards had left. In fact, a violinist had been added to the mix.

“Whatever are you wearing, my dear?”

“Oh.” I hadn't really thought about it when I shrugged into some combination of clothes that covered the important bits.  I was in my old canvas trousers (someone in the palace laundry had mended the ripped hem) and a loose sleeveless top. The black silk bathrobe Nadia had dressed me in was wrapped over that, just skimming the tops of my thighs. 

Julian laughs.  “Don't worry about it.  I'm sure you’d look fetching in a flour sack.  You certainly do in whatever this is.”

“You’re the one wearing gloves indoors and a shirt missing all of its buttons.”

“Fair enough.  And you’re working with a Countess trying to arrest me.”

“Kind of.”  I have another drink of my beer - an earthy, bready almost perfect stout.  “I think Nadia actually wants to find out what happened three years ago, as do I.”

He shrugs, eyes glassy with drink.  “You do realize that she'll hang you with me if she finds out you've known where I am and haven't told her.”  He strokes the side of my head that collided with the door frame the other night. “Your head hasn't been bothering you has it?”

My head always bothers me, but not from the knock the other day.  Whatever he did to heal the concussion lasted. “See I’m having trouble reconciling that concern with a cold blooded murderer.”

“Even murderers are entitled to some moral complexity, my dear.”  He drinks his beer, looking morose, but when the violinist begins a quick paced tune, he begins to drum his fingers on the table.  

I smile at him and toss back the remains of my beer.  This is what I was hoping for when I came - to find someone to dance with into the energy running through my body gave out.  Anyone would do, honestly, but at the moment, Julian intrigues me. I stand up and extend a hand to him. “Want to dance?” 

Eyebrow arched in surprise, he accepts my offer, grinning as he does.  He is, as I suspected, a fine dancer, even if the difference in our heights makes it a somewhat awkward pairing.  We whirl through two songs before returning breathless to our table and signaling to the barkeep for more beers, which Julian helpfully goes to fetch.

“Why the trouble sleeping, lovely?”  He slides close to me on the bench, wrapping an arm companionably around my shoulders.

I shrug.  Honestly, I don't know. Something in the conversation with Asra upset me, but I couldn't quite recall what was or wasn't said.  And sometimes, I just got too agitated to sleep for days on end for absolutely no apparent reason at all. Reaching out, I run my finger along the dark circle under his uncovered eye.  “And how well do you sleep?”

“I'll sleep when I'm dead.”  He leans over me. “You smell good.”

“Oh, one of Nadia's courtiers tossed a glass of wine on me, then next thing I know Nadia had tossed me in her bath, and I'm in this rather ridiculous robe, and there's something about emeralds in Prakra.”  The sash keeping the robe closed has come undone, and my hair is falling around my face in slatternly locks, and my speak is ramped up to an uncomfortably quick pace, but I can’t find it in me to care.

“Really now?  A courtier doused you in wine, and the countess decided that she needed to bathe you.”

“Yes, I know.  Bad romance novel.  But it happened.”

“Never said it didn’t.”  He traces the line of my now exposed collarbone.  I lean into his touch, running my tongue across my bottom lip.  But then he shakes his head, fixes the robe, and pushes my hair back from my face.  I narrow my eyes at him, pouting. He runs a hand along my jaw. “I’d love to, my dear, really, but I don’t know you well enough to know if this is your normal, or if you simply have amazing balance while inebriated.”

“I’m never normal, perse.”

“Note that I said ‘your normal’ not just 'normal.’”

“I'm not at all sure that I even have a personalized normal.”

“Life that complicated, my dear?”

“Not really.”  My life itself is fairly normal, boring even, except for that whole not remembering more than three years thing.  Maybe that's why I had accepted the Countess's proposal; I wanted the exterior to match a little more constant parade of up and down in my interior life.  “But my mind makes up for it in sheer unpredictability.”

“You better get back to the Palace; it’s nearly dawn.  Come on, I’ll walk you.” 

“That sounds like a horrible idea.”  I lean forward, resting my forehead against his shoulder.  I’m not  _ inebriated _ , but I  _ might _ be a little drunk.  “I don’t want you to get caught.”

“Compromise.  Your shop?”

“I can work with that, I think.”  I mean, he was walking openly in the market the other morning.  The people who live and work around my shop must not be in a hurry to turn him in either.

~~~

“Are you warm enough in that?”

“This? I’m fine.  Silk is a surprisingly good insulator.”

“I did not know that.”  He takes my arm when I stumble over a bucket that has been tossed in the street.  “Say, why did my old mask upset you so much?”

“I -” I shudder at the thought of those glassy red eyes.  “I don’t know to be honest.” I pull my hand out of his. “I’m sure a lot of people don’t like them.  And you had broken into my home as well.”

“Yeah, I really am sorry about that.  I mean, I thought I was just breaking into As - the witch’s home.”

“Why are you trying to find him?”  And for that matter, I think to myself, why don't you want to say his name?

“I need answers.  I think he has them, if I can get him to tell me something for once.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Heh,” Julian chuckles.  “How long have you . . . ?”

“Been his apprentice?  Three years.” At least, that’s as far as I can remember being his apprentice.  I’m not quite sure that I’m ready to trust Julian with the full extent to which I’m missing my past.  

“Fascinating timing.”

“What?”

“Oh nothing.  Look we’re at your shop.”

Fascinating timing indeed.  Slippery boy. I undo the wards on the door and turn back to say goodbye to Julian.  He leans down, embraces me, then kisses my cheeks: one, then the other, then the first one again.  “Sleep, my dear.” 

“You too, maybe?”

“Maybe.”  He smiles at me - a genuine smile with no hint of a smirk.  Then he’s gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because the pat down scene in the prolouge hadn't been rewritten, expanded on, reimagined enough times already. Obviously.

I do sleep.  After a couple of hours, sunlight pouring in the bedroom window wakes me.  Feeling lazy, I hitch a ride with a merchant heading to the Palace from the market by my shop.  Portia is overseeing a group of servants loading up a wagon in the courtyard when I arrive.

“Oh, there you are!  We're going into town to announce the Masquerade.  Milady wants you to come with us. You can check on your shop.”  She looks me over from head to toe. “And maybe you can grab a few extra outfits.” 

I switched the bathrobe for a proper jacket before I left this morning, but apparently I still didn't pass muster.  Or maybe it was the raccoon eyes and messy hair. Portia gives me a sympathetic look and passes over a warm metal canteen.  “Coffee. Careful, it's hot. Climb on up in the wagon. Want to tell me where you were?”

I take several drinks of the thick dark coffee before answering. “Couldn't sleep, so I went out for a walk.  Not much to it.”

She looks around the wagon, counting heads and then gestures for the driver to start.  The wagon jolts into forward motion. “Just a walk?”

“Mostly.”  I grin foolishly and drink some more coffee.  

She winks and laughs.  “Well, I suppose it turned out today, but keep in mind that Milady is generally an early riser.”

“I’ll mention that to my insomnia demons.”  

Portia snorts in amusement and then turns to one of her colleagues to discuss some aspect of the announcement.  I finish the coffee then lean back against a bag of rice in the wagon bed to close my eyes. The morning sun is pleasantly warm, and the rice makes for a passable cushion.  Too soon, the wagon halts in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the morning market, and Portia starts shouting orders for folks to go about their business but return at noon for the announcement.  

I stop by the baker’s stall and pick up a loaf of pumpkin bread on my way back to the shop, wondering why I hadn’t done that earlier.  It’ll go well with some more coffee, and then I probably should attempt to find something a little more palace appropriate in my limited wardrobe.  Or maybe I could borrow something flashier from Asra's. He wouldn’t mind, assuming that he ever noticed that I was wearing his clothes instead of mine in between wandering off to here, there, and everywhere.

Chewing on a torn off piece of bread, I undo the wards on the door and shove it open with my hip, only to find a surprised looking Julian on the other side.

“What are you doing here?”  I reach up to put my free hand on his chest and push him back inside, narrowing my eyes at him.  “I know I locked everything this morning, so either you broke in, or -”

He holds up a bit of copper, sheepish grin on his face.  “-or I have a key?”

I snatch it from him, put my bread down on the counter, and compare it to the keys on my ring.  “I was hoping Asra was back. Hey, did I tell you could eat that?” He drops his hand away from my bread and begins to apologize.  I twitch my fingers at him dismissively and smile. “It’s fine, have a piece. You look like you need it. Who gave you a key to the back room?”

“You, oh, I see.  You don’t . . . I, umm -”  He looks down at his feet and blushes before recovering with a smirk.  “Let’s just say I needed to make some house calls. After hours.”

He steps to the side of me trying to get around and to the door.  I step back, leaning against the door and blocking him as best I can given our difference in height and size.  I already know that he’s quite capable of picking me up and moving me if he wants to leave. “Uhuh, sure.”

“Oh, I hope you don’t think I’m a thief.  I’m a lot of things, but not that.”

“I remember you telling me - possible more than once - that I shouldn’t trust you.”

“Well then.”  He shrugs out of his overcoat with a dramatic sigh and begins unbuttoning the jacket underneath.  “Search me. If you find anything of yours, I’ll show myself to the stocks.” His shirt is already missing most, if not all of its buttons.  Oh, this is good. I fold my arms across my chest and suck a breath through my teeth. Possibly better than the coffee he’s keeping me from. He spreads his arms and tilts his head down, one eye still peering at me through his curly hair.  “Search til you’re satisfied.”

“I think I will.”

His head jerks back up when I call the bluff.  The stunned expression on his face changes gradually into a leer.  He doesn’t seem to mind much. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?  Don’t be shy. I promise I’ll be good.”

No one has ever accused me of being shy.  I step close to him and lift my hands to his shoulders then run them down and around each well muscled arms.  Coming back to his neck, I slide my fingers just under his shirt. He draws in his breath sharply, and I pause, watching his face to see if he objects, before I continue, tracing my fingers up and around to the back of his neck and up into his thick hair.  I have to lift myself on my toes to do. The motion pushes me against him, and I can feel his pulse jump the artery running down his neck.

“Sorry.”  I smile wickedly as I drop back onto flat feet.  “You’d be shocked what people manage to hide there.”  I lower my fingertips to his collarbone, then just beneath, and stop again, meeting his gaze and giving him another chance to protest.  A blush begins to spread across his face, and his breath quickens, but he doesn’t break eye contact. I continue, spreading my hands wide across his chest - ah, he is wonderfully muscular - curving my palms around the sides of his torso.  He jumps when I reach his waist.

“Ah, no, not there, I’m terribly ticklish.”  I look up, stifling a laugh and pulling my hands away.  “That, um, can be our little secret.”

“Hold still.  You said you’d be good.”  I step back. He’s biting his lip and the flush in his face is pronounced.  This  _ is _ interesting.  

“Done so soon?  Why you’ve only just started - Oh!”  He nearly jumps again when I crouch down in front of him, running my hands along the outside of his legs, stopping at the top of his absurdly high boots, not quite wanton enough to drag my hands all the way around to the inside of his thighs.  Yet. I straighten back up and step around. He twists following me with his eyes. “I had no idea that you were so . . . hands on.”

“Did I say you could move?  I don’t think I did.”

“No.  No you didn’t.”

The tips of his ears turn red as he faces forward again.  A shiver passes through him as a run my palms over his back, down to his hips to check his pockets, stopping when I find a hard edge in one.

“Oh, don’t mind that, just a knife.”

I fish it out of his pocket and toss it on the counter, clicking my tongue against my teeth in mock disappointment.

“Not that I’m not happy to see you. I can show you if you like.”

I take that as a cue to continue our game and slap my hand lightly against his ass, giving myself a moment to appreciate it.  Indulging myself, I run my hands down his legs again, this time trailing my fingers closer to the insides of his thighs. I step back around him, tracing my fingers over his hip.  He’s sways toward me, weigh shifting from his heels to the balls of his feet.

“How many knives do you have hidden in those silly boots?”

“Umm.  Two. Are you - are you done?  You’re quite . . . thorough.”

“Not quite.”  I step next to him.  Not quite touching - just teasingly close.   “You were going to show me something?”

“I, yes, . . . oh hell -”  He steps back and leans over, bringing his mouth to mine.  One hand clutches my upper arm, the other curls around my cheek.  I push back into him, pulling his bottom lip between my teeth, biting about as hard as I dared to do while avoiding drawing blood.  He moans. “You don't have to be that gentle.” 

I laugh with impish glee and grab his hands, tugging him back into the reading room, to one of the multiple napping nests scattered throughout the shop.  Shoving him down on the cushions, I peel off his gloves and then straddle his lap and push aside the collar of his shirt to kiss, bite, suck at the pale skin there.  His head lolls back and his hands trace their way down my back fingers digging into my ass, then pulling back up, sliding to the front and under my shirt to cup my breasts, thumbs drawing ever tighter circles around my nipples.  I whine into his neck and run my hands through his hair, accidentally nudging the band holding the patch over his eye. His hands pull away from me, and he quickly fumbles the band back into place.

“Hey, slow down a little.”  He takes my shoulders and pushes me back from him before sitting up.  “I'm not going to run away or anything.” He pushes my hair out of my face, then leaves down and kisses me slowly, teasing his tongue between my lips.

“Mmm . . . maybe you should.”  I push him down again and walk my fingers down his sternum.

“I’m not known for making good decisions.” 

I tug his shirt free from the waistband of his trousers, pull the fabric aside, and run my hand over his smooth skin.  “You’re suspiciously free of scars for a former pirate.”

“Oh, um, long story there, I was more the ship’s doctor than -”

I kiss him to cut him off.  “You’re talking too much, Julian.”

“Um, yes, talking too much, I do -” 

“Shh.”  I press a single finger against his lips then replace it with my mouth, sinking into the kiss for as long as I can without breaking for breath.  When I finally do, I shift all my weight to my left leg and roll onto my back, tugging at Julian’s arm to bring him with me. He knocks his head against a low shelf as he turns, face scrunching up in a wince.  The shelf rattles and a knick knack - one of Asra’s little carvings falls into the floor. I trace my fingers over the small fox, painted in a fanciful pattern of purple and white and frown, propping myself up on my elbows and looking around the room, suddenly remembering a comment he made the other night.

“I don't remember there ever being a skull in here.”

“What?”  He looks confused.

“The other night you said something about the creepy skull being gone.”  I sit up and touch my fingers lightly where he knocked his head on the shelf, willing the temperature of the air around my fingers to drop by a few degrees.

“Oh - that, feels - I mean, don’t worry about that, not a bad bump.  It’ll be fine in a minute really.” He pulls my hand away from his head.  “Just how much magic has he taught you?”

“Some.”  Often it doesn’t feel like Asra teaches me anything; he just suggests that some task or another can be accomplished with magic, and I just somehow already know how to do it.  “About this skull?”

“You switch moods this quickly all the time?”

“Everyday except fifth Wednesdays.  Those are usually pretty stable.”

Julian sighs and rolls his good eye at me.  “He had it on a shelf in the corner. Somewhat charred.  Some kind of memento mori, I guess. Definitely macabre.”

I take his hand in mine and turn it over in mine tracing the lines on his palm.  “Never seen it. Is this your dominant hand?” I pull it closer to my face, peering at the life line curling around his skull.  

“Huh?  Yes. Anyway, I think, maybe, he was in a, uh, peculiar state of mind at the time.  Maybe more than I realized.”

“Asra is quite peculiar all the time.”  Beautifully so, but very much so. “You have an interesting hand.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.  Your lifeline.  It actually breaks here.”  I point to the jag in the crease.  It’s faint, but definitely a break, not a ring or a concurrency of fainter lines.  “I’ve only seen that on one other palm.”

“Oh. Whose?”

“Mine.”  I hold my hand out and point to the strange break.  The break in his is faint, but the life line stops sharply on my palm, for a good half centimeter or so, before picking back up again, just as abruptly.  “Asra refuses to tell me what it means.” And the books on palm reading in languages I knew had mysteriously disappeared at the same time I asked.

An insistent knocking begins at the front door of the shop.  I'm ready to ignore it, but the knocking turns into the ringing of the chimes tied in the doorframe to alert me when a customer comes in.  I roll my eyes. Forgot to lock the door back.

“We're closed!”

“Dema?”

The voice is Portia's.  Julian's eyes go wide and he hastily scrambles out of the floor, redoing the fastenings of his trousers and looking around for an exit.  “Just stay back here,” I whisper to him. I pull myself upright, quickly do up the buttons on my shirt, and push my fingers through my hair before stepping out into the main room of the shop.

“Portia, it's not noon already -?”

She isn't looking at me.  Her eyes are trained up and over my shoulder where Julian has pushed aside the curtain.

“Il - Ilya!”

She grabs at his arms with hands that I’ve only seen shake once before, when the Countess announced her intention to hang the missing Dr. Devorak.  “You, you, bastard,  _ shto ty delaesh? _ Are you trying to get caught?”

“You've grown up, Pasha.” 

I think back to the barely legible letter I found in his desk.  Is Portia the sister he has addressed it to?

“You... Oh, I'll show you sorry, you...”

Suddenly she looks over at me, blue eyes going wide.  I raise my hands and side step behind the counter and toward the stairs to flee before she turns her tongue on me.  “Umm, I'll be upstairs.” 

 

~~~

 

I curl back up in my bed and allow my thoughts to meander into a dream.  A small white fox curls up beside me, tongue lolling. It whines with pleasure as I run my hands through its fluffy fur.  I choose my eyes for a moment, and when I open them again, the fox has become Asra.

“Master.” I twine my fingers tighter into his hair.

“Mmm.”  He catches both my hands in one of his pinning my wrists above my head.  His hands have always struck me as large in comparison to his height. He balances himself over me, weight resting on one knee between my legs.  “Don't call me that.” He leans down and kisses the corner if my mouth.

“Asra.”

“Better.”  He kisses the other side of my mouth. I whine, and arch my back pushing closer to him.  Teasing, he kisses my forehead, before coming back to my mouth.

“Do you love me?”

With the question, our positions are reversed.  We're still in bed in the upstairs of the shop, but I'm looking down at him, straddling his torso and holding his hands above his head.  The light has changed from the cool light of morning to af warm, afternoon glow, and the beginnings of laugh lines don't mark the corners of his eyes.  He's smiling easily, without any trace that he's holding part of himself back. 

“Do you love me, Dema?”

I lift a hand away from his wrist to strike his face, then lean forward to kiss him, taking my time with his beautiful lips.  “Of course,” I whisper as I pull back from him. “Always. I'll love you forever.” This scene has been scripted, but I'm not an actor in it.  I am myself, but these words have already been fixed at some point in time. “If you'll let me.”

He brings his free hand to my face as the light changes back to what it was before, and his face becomes guarded again.  “Ah, dear heart, how I want to!”

 

~~~

 

“Dema?”  

Portia’s voice pulls me out of my dreams.  With a groan I roll back out of bed and stumble to the top of the stairs, beckoning her to come up to the apartment.  She looks around nervously, then climbs the stairs. I take her elbow and lead her to the kitchen. I need tea before I can possibly manage another conversation.

“Umm...” She stares as I wake the stove salamander and start a plot of water to boil.  “So, my brother, Ilya . . .”

“He’s the Julian Devorak the Countess wants to hang.”  I measure tea leaves - Keemun, not as smoky as Lapsang Souchong, but still strong and better with milk - into our well used pot and set it next to the stove.  Looking across the table at Portia, I gesture for her to sit. “Do you want her to catch him?”

She sits down and looks at her hands. “Does it matter what I want?”

Her posture and the question emphasize the resemblance between the two of them; Portia’s red hair and blue eyes are the brighter, color saturated version of Julian’s auburn and grey.  What happened when they were young, that neither of them believe that simply wanting something, some outcome is acceptable? I pour boiling water over the leaves and sit down across from her, sighing loudly.

“Why shouldn't it matter what you want?  Or I want? Or anyone wants? We may or may not get it, but that's different from whether it matters.”  I lean over the pot breathing in the scented steam while the tea steeps. “Julian is your brother. If he's caught, he hangs.  Are you alright with that?” 

She folds her hands in front of her. “No. Are you?”

I shake my head. “No, I don't want him to hang.  I don’t think he’s guilty.”

Portia visibly relaxes and looks up at me, face brightening. “Great - we're partners then!”

I take a mug from the center of the table, fill it with tea, and push it across to her. “Partners.  I like the sound of that.” I pour tea into my own mug and click it against hers. I suspect, I’m going to need whatever help I can get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't remember if I saw the comment here or on tumblr suggesting that the skull Asra had in that flashback scene could have been the Apprentice's, but I totally adopted that idea.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: self-harm, suicide discussed
> 
> I had a mission to write something not painfully angsty, but my brain apparently isn't cooperating with that mission.
> 
> Not quite canon compliant. At least with the version of events, Asra tells the Satrinava sisters.

_ Nine years ago.  _

 

She’s crouched in front of him, running a finger along the edge of one of the masks he had laid out on a shawl, tracing the delicate patterns that he had carved into it.  Her hand shook a little as she did, and when she extended her arm, her long sleeve pulled back, exposing a bandage tied around her wrists. Overall, the noise of the masquerade was ambient, but everytime something crashed, or a person shouted with glee, she startled. 

Finally she looked up and met his eyes.  “These are beautiful. Did you make them?”

“A friend and I did.”

“You’re talented.”  She touches her pocket.  “My aunt said I should get one from you . . . for the rest of the week.”  

“Your aunt?”

She inclined her head to the shop next to them.  “Anna, she’s my mother’s aunt actually, but I just moved here . . . with her.”  He looks again at her face, searching out a resemblance to the old witch who had taught him to read and kept him fed when he didn’t manage to sell enough trinkets and readings, and found it in the girl’s blue eyes.  

“Anna’s a good person.”  

“She said the same about you.”  

“Do you know which one you want?”

“I don’t.”  A brass band passed by, loud and clanging.  She jumped again and looked back over her shoulder.  Asra shifted over on the blanket he was sitting on and patted the space next to him.  “Sit with me. Until you decide.”

She stepped carefully around the masks and sat down, pressing her back to the wood slat fence behind him and pulling her knees up to her chest.  “Thanks. Anna told me I should get out of the house, but I’ve only been here three days, and this -” She runs her hands over her face and back through her hair.  “Masquerade, or whatever it is, it’s very . . . overwhelming.”

“It can be that.  I don’t really like crowds.”  

She leaned her head back against the fence and sat with her hands pressed over her eyes.  Asra watched her quietly, not noticing that Faust had crawled out of his shirt until she had extended her head to the girl and licked her cheek.  The girl jumped, then looked at the snake and laughed. “Hi there. Who are you?”

Faust extended her tongue, sniffing the girl’s fingertips before butting her head against her hand.

“Her name is Faust.”

“Hi, Faust.”  She stroked the snake’s head and trailed her fingers down Faust’s neck.  “I’m Dema.”

Faust turned her head back to Asra.   _ Friend? _

“Maybe, Faust.”

“Oh, does she talk to you?”

“She does.”

“That must be nice.  To not be alone.” She leans back over the masks and picks one up absently.  “I should probably pick one. I just don’t know.”

Asra shuffled through the contents of his bag and found his cards.  “Here let’s try this.” He shuffled the cards on the ground in front of him.  “Cut the deck into three parts, then pick one.” She chose and he picked that stack of cards back up, dealing them out into a circle.  “Choose three.”

Her hand hovers the cards, then she suddenly flips over three: eight of cups reversed, nine of swords, and the Fool.

“Well-”  She looks up at him.   “That’s not a felicitous reading.”

“You read cards.”

“Some.  I’m not very good.”

“What do they tell you?”

“Little I didn't already know.”  She looked away from the cards and twisted get hands together nervously.

“They only tell you where you are.  What might be. Not what must be.” He takes one of her hands in his.  “Dema, the future is still yours to decide.”

She turns her face to him.  “Maybe I shouldn't be allowed to make decisions.”  Pulling her hand loose, she scrambles to her feet and steps over the display of masks.  “My aunt also told me to tell you to come in for dinner.”

 

Asra let himself into the upstairs of the shop, warm and redolent with the scents of spices and peppers.  Anna was hovering over a bubbling pot of soup. 

“Asra.”  She smiled in greeting, her eyes almost disappearing into wrinkles.  “Come tell me what else this needs.” She gestured to the pot handing him a spoon and then moving aside to let him adjust the seasonings.

“You met my niece?”

He nodded and crushed a pinch of cumin seeds with the blade of her well worn kitchen knife before adding to the pot.  “She has your eyes.”

“She has my sister's eyes.  The girl's grandmother.” The old woman sighed and leaned back against the counter, arms folded across her chest.  “Her parents sent her to me. An apprentice. Neither my sister or her girl ever showed a lick of talent for anything magical.”

“Faust likes her.”

“Ah, would Faust have a go finding the mouse that's gotten into my cabinets? Are you planning to go home tonight?”

“No, I thought I'd just curl up beside the shop.”

“Silly child.  You know I'll make you up a pallet in here.”

Asra smiled.  “I know, Anna.”

 

After dinner, Asra went back into the street to try to sell another few masks.  Dema was sitting at the table when he returned, the remaining masks tied up in a shawl.  A bowl of warm water and two piles of bandages - one dirty, one clean - were on the table in front of her.   She looked up as he closed the kitchen door then back down at her arms. Ignoring him, she wrung water from a cloth and dabbed at her arms, hissing as she did.

“Do you want some help?”

Her eyes flashed, and she curled her upper lip.  “No. I'll do it myself.”

Asra sat down across from her.  The water smelled of thyme and grain alcohol.  Her left arm had been slashed repeated. The cuts are deeper, jagged, and crossed by a savage tear that looked like a bite mark.  Stitches hold the half healed edges together. She looked up, meeting his eyes with a challenge in her own. He didn't look away.

“You want me to see.”

“I -”  She dabbed again at her left arm.  “I don't want to hide. To fake being whole.  I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I, I . . .”

“You must have been desperate.”

“That's not an awful choice of words.  But no word really means what I need it to - to explain.”

“I don't need you to explain.”

“You might be the only one.”  She set aside the cloth she had been using to clean the cuts, looked over at the clean rolled bandages, and then she brought her blue eyes to his.  “It is easier to let someone help me with this part.” She bit her bottom lip in frustration and glanced away. “Would you?”

“Yes.”  He folded his fingers around hers and squeezed them briefly before picking up a roll of fabric.  He wound it around her arm, starting from the wrist and wrapping down to her elbow before tying it off loosely.

“This is why they sent me.  The apprentice thing is a lie.  There's any number of people who could have taught me at home.  But they think, maybe, the famous, infamous Aunt Anna can fix me.  Or maybe they just want me far away from them when I explode into a million pieces.”  She picked up the bowl, walked to the sink, and dumped the contents. “I’ll scald that in the morning.  But I’m going to bed now.” She pushed back the curtain over the door leading back to the other rooms, then paused and turned back to him, finding and meeting his gaze.  “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Not looking at me with pity.”

 

Asra retrieved a mask that had snapped from the bottom of the bag.  He glued it back together, and in the dim light of a lamp, painted it in abstract swirling colors, energetic and undefined.  He covered the repaired rift with a layer of clay paint, then adheres a layer of gilt over that, warming and moistening the clay with his breath, and polishing the gold leaf with a smooth piece of amethyst.  

He’s gone in the morning before anyone wakes.  But the mask waited left on the table.


	5. To Bring You Here Again

_Eight years ago._

 

    “Where are we going?”  I scramble over a fallen log, following Asra’s meandering path through the forest.  “At this point we’ll never make it back into town before dark.”

    Asra pauses and turns back to me, that easy smile on his face.  “Were you planning on sleeping tonight?”

    “Well, I mean, maybe.”  I would love to sleep tonight, but I can tell now, only midway through the afternoon that sleep wasn’t going to happen, my mind is whirling about, finding a new tangent each moment.  Last night had been whittled away in a bar, and then, when they finally showed me the door to close up, reorganizing the herb stores in my aunt’s shop. I should keep my eye out for some of shade loving herbs while we were out here.  The supplies of skullcap and betony were running low. My fault. Anna, my aunt, wasn’t very happy with my reorganizing, but she did acknowledge that I had gotten at least a couple years worth of dust cleaned off the upper shelves. The night - day - before that I had spent passed out after being awake for three days in a row.

    “Dema.”  Asra’s hands are folded around mine, and Faust has stretched herself toward me, tonguing at my cheek.  “Come back.”

    I take a deep breath, trying - and mostly failing - to pay attention to the sensation of the air, then shake my head and rock back and forth on my feet.  “Sorry.”

    “It’s okay.”  He lets go of one of my hands, but turns the other so our palms are touching and weaves his fingers through mine.  He was going to teach me to read palms at some point. Anna didn’t dabble in fortunes, said she had no knack for it.  He tugs me forward; his fingers around mine are comforting, grounding. “Come on. You’ll like where we're going. I promise.”

    I’d ask him how he knows, but Asra has a knack for fortunes.

 

    Asra leads me back into a hollow, following the path of small stream back to its source.  He pushes aside some overhanging vines, revealing a cave in the side of a hill. I grin at him.  I do like caves. The air is always perfectly cool inside. I don’t even have to duck down to enter; Asra, does - at least a bit.

Inside the air is cool and moist.  The walls, quartz rich granite glimmer in the limited sunlight.  I tap my fingers together - delighted by the sparkling - and conjure a glowing ball of light.  Beyond the humidity, I feel a sort of thrumming in the cave itself, one that complements, cancels the buzzing of my own mind.

“Oh, I do like this Asra.”

He laughs and summons his own ball of light.  “We haven’t even gotten to the best part. Take my hand again.  I don’t want to lose you in here.”

I don’t think I’d mind losing myself in here.  But I also don’t mind holding his hand.

The chambers he leads me through twist and turn, high ceiling and low.  Patterns are marked on the walls. Some are carved, scarring the stone, others are nothing more than a faint trace of magic.  In some of the taller chambers, faint rays of light cut through the darkness, falling down from vents into the cave system. The thrumming, humming, not quite singing, of the magic that I feel grows stronger as we proceed, but it soothes instead of overwhelming me.

Finally, we reach a well lit chamber, if it can even be called that.  It’s more the base of shaft cutting deep into the earth. Enough light reaches the floor that plants have grown around and in the pool at the middle.  Ferns and mosses creep up the rocky walls that surround us. The water pulses along with the vibrations of the magic - a rapid and steady heartbeat for the cave itself.    

“Oh!”  I let go of Asra’s hand and kneel beside the pool, fingertips hovering over the surface.  “Can I touch it?”

He smiles.  “You can. You can swim in it if you like.  Sometimes the water does strange things, but it’s safe as long as you don’t panic.”

I dip my hand in.  The water is surprisingly warm around my hand.  And soothing. I laugh, dragging my fingers along the soft sandy bottom.  Then, I strip out of my shirt and trousers, tossing them aside before wading into the pool.  Within three steps, the water is past my waist.

“Careful - it gets deep quickly.”

“I see that.”  I turn back around and wave to Asra.  He seems further away than I would have expected, but he’s grinning and has already pulled off his shoes.  “Come with me.” I sink into the water, letting it take most of weight and watching the sunlight filter down, while Asra shrugs off his shirt and the complicatedly pleated skirt he was wearing today.  He’s silent in the water and manages to sneak beside me and surprise me with a splash. When I turn to retaliate, he’s out of range, swimming toward the middle of the pool and then disappearing below the surface with a kick of feet.

The bottom of the pond falls away almost immediately.  I duck my head below the water. The sand sparkles in the dappled sunlight, and tiny plants compete for control of the patches of light left by the giant lily pads overhead.  In the shaded spots, something else grows - pale, glowing, and lavender. I dive beneath the surface, kicking down toward the strange plant. Reaching it takes longer than I expected; depth is hard to gauge in the clear water.  But, as I get closer to the plant - its leaves are plump and curved like a succulent - I don’t feel pressure building in my ears or the burning feeling of lungs demanding a fresh breath of air. I spin and catch sight of Asra, hovering nearby.  He gestures to his chest and mouth, and I remember what he said about the water doing strange things.

If one or the other of us moved, I didn’t notice it, but Asra is close enough to take my hand.  I wrap my fingers around his and let him pull me deeper into this curious, weightless place. The sunlight wavers, competing with glowing patterns from the rock formations in the water; it’s unclear whether they are drawn by a hand or part of the natural magic of the place.  Whichever, both, or something else entirely, it’s gorgeous.

    The thrum of the cave’s magic has remained constant, fading from the top of my consciousness into a steady hum.  As I spin and tumble in the water, savoring the sensation of neutral buoyancy, another pitch takes over, lower, stuttering and uneven.  I twist around, trying to find the source of the drone. A crevice opens in the side of the stone walls. Unlike the rest of the pool, which is caught in an interplay of filtered sunlight and the glow of magic, the absence of light defines this crevice.  I kick toward the crevice. The drone is dissonant, but familiar, and I want to know what creates it.

    Something wraps tightly around my waist, and I struggle for a moment before realizing that Asra has thrown his arms around me.  He pulls me back, and we’re suddenly back in the shallows, standing in water that barely reaches my waist and breathing the cool cave air.

    “Are you okay?”

    “What?  Yes. I was only curious.”

    Asra shakes his head.  “I’ve never seen that crevice before, but it’s dangerous.  Or at least, could be dangerous. I don’t think you would drown, but you could get lost.  There are a lot of convoluted passages.”

“Yeah.”  I think about the ominous drone and wonder just how deep my curiosity would have pulled me.  It’s gone now. All I can hear is the cave humming that same comfortable pitch as before. “Thanks.”    

Well above us, the sky has darkened and the main light in the cavern is the soft glow of the luminescent plants and the ensorcelled marks on the wall.  Asra stands, dripping wet, and offers me a hand up. I take it. When he pulls me up, I overbalance and fall forward, catching myself against his shoulders.  He laughs as I straighten up.

“I know a good trick.”  I gestures between us with my hands and a wave of warmth passes over us, drying our hair and turning what little clothing we had left on - skin tight and translucent with water a moment before - opaque again.  

Asra turns picking up his skirt from the pile of clothes we left on the bank and stepping into it.  “You’ll have to teach me that one. Where’d you learn it?”  
    “Figured it myself after a few too many times walking home drenched and cold in the dark post skinny dipping.”  I pull my trousers back on and shrug into my shirt, wrapping my arms around my chest. I’m dry, but the cave air is still chilly.

“Cold?”

“A bit.”

Asra digs in his bag and retrieves a lightweight blanket that he had somehow managed to pack in a bag half its size.  He shakes it out and wraps it around my shoulders, bending down to kiss my nose playfully.

“Aren’t you chilly too?”

“Maybe a little.”

I sit down on the sandy bank and stretch one arm out.  Asra settles down next to me and smiles when I tuck half of the blanket around his shoulders.  He waits for a minute, arms folded across his knees, then he looks at me and slides one arm around my waist.  

“Is this okay?”

“Very much so.”

He pulls me closer to him and runs his fingers through my hair.  “I’ve wanted to bring you here for awhile.”

“I like it.”  I curl into his embrace, leaning my head against his shoulder.  “This is the quietest I’ve felt in . . .” My voice trails off as I can’t narrow down a timeframe.

“I’m glad.”  Pulling me with him, he lies back.  He tucks one arm behind his head. “The magic here is mostly benevolent.  And peaceful.”

I rest my head on his chest and pull the blanket as far around us as I can manage.  Closing my eyes, I listen to his heart beat beneath my ear.

When I open my eyes again, the full moon has risen in the sky, casting its cool light down to the pool.  Asra’s breathing is deep and steady. I touch my fingers to his lips, and he smiles without waking. He could sleep anywhere.  I settle back against him and close my eyes, falling asleep without a battle against myself for the first time in weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woohoo! Finally wrote something fluffy instead of angsty.
> 
> Not very well proofread, because I currently can't sleep. :(
> 
> Thanks for reading.


	6. No One Here Gets Out Alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> During the plague...

“You did everything you could.  Literally, I, uh, couldn’t have done anything else.”  The doctor was young, only a few years older than me, and skinny as a bean pole and with the slightest hint of an accent when he spoke.  He’s not wearing one of those ghastly masks, for which I was grateful. Anna hated them. Claimed they wouldn’t do much more than just covering your mouth with a kerchief anyway.  In the three weeks since her eyes started turning red, I had burnt every kerchief in the house and then given up entirely, assuming that I’d sicken soon enough anyway.

“I’m sorry.”  He took a tiny vial out of his bag and offered it to me.  “Laudanum. It might help if she’s in pain, but only give her a drop or two at a time.  Anymore will -”

“I have morphine.”  I cut him off. “And if I decide that she’d want me to end it, I can think of at least five other admixtures I have the ingredients for that would do the job as well.  Keep that for someone else. It won’t be very long now anyway.”

He put the bottle back in his bag.  “The carts come round in the morning.  I know, if seems awful, but the mass graves, they’re the best way to minimize the contagion being passed on.  You should burn all that bedding too.”

I nod absently and continue stroking the back of my aunt’s hand, counting the seconds between each increasingly shallow breath.  It doesn’t  _ seem _ awful; it is awful.  But he’s right.

“Hey, do you, um, have anyone else?  Someone to help you, maybe.”

I look up at the doctor’s face for the first time.  Gray eyes, nearly lost in dark circles - he doesn’t look like he’s slept more than I have recently.  “He’s traveling right now.” I twisted the ring Asra gave me before he left - two trips ago, mayb, they blur together - around on my finger.

He frowned, rummaged around in the pockets of his coat, and then handed me a steel flask.  “For you then. Not officially approved, but it takes the edge off.”

I gave him a skeptical look, then - what the hell? - uncorked the bottle and took a swig, managing not to make a face as the liquid burnt it way down into my gut.  My second drink is slower. “It’s not bad. I like a liquor to bite me back, at least a little bit. What is it?”

“ _ Slivovitsa _ \- plum brandy.  My grannies swear by it for basically everything.  Not that this is as good as theirs.”

I held the flask back out to him, but he shook his head.

“Keep it.”

Another cough racked Anna’s frail body - weaker than the last.  Any strength she had left to try and clear her lungs was fading fast.  I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and rearranged the pillows behind her so that she’s a bit more upright.  Once she’s settled, I held a shallow cup of water to her cracked lips and blotted away what she doesn’t drink - most of it, probably all of it - with a square of cloth.  Another for the burning pile.

When I look up, the doctor was still watching me.  There weren’t a lot of sad eyes left in Vesuvia; we’d all become too acclimated to pain and death to show any response on our faces.  But his eyes are curiously melancholic.

“You can go.  I know you can’t do anything.”

“I, uh, I’ll stop by tomorrow.  To check on you.”

“You don’t have to.  We all know how this ends.”

“I will anyway.”

 

She died in the night.

I arranged her limbs into something that vaguely looks peaceful, surrounded her with flowers from the garden, and knotted the bedsheets into a shroud.   Finally, I gathered her up in my arms, using magic to steady myself on the steps, but sure that I needed to do this last task for her myself. 

When dawn came and with it the wagons to collect the dead, I was sitting by the door of the shop, staring blankly at the street.  

 

By late afternoon, I’ve tossed all the bedding out of the upstairs window and set the pile on fire.  I was shooing my chickens into their coop for the night, when I hear a voice calling to me from the gate.  Auburn hair appeared above the fence - the doctor from last night. I opened the gate and looked him up and down.  No uniform, and there’s a wrinkled dog tagging along at his heels.

“Hey, I said I’d check on you.”

“She’s dead.  I’m alive. Thanks.”

“Can I, could I step in for minute?  I wanted to talk to you.”

“Is your dog going to attack my chickens?”

He laughed.  “Nah, I can guarantee that she’s too damn lazy to chase a chicken.”

I silently held the gate open for him and he walked into the back yard.  The fire has turned into a roaring blaze. “Sorry, I didn’t get your name last night.”

“Oh, um, Julian Devorak.  You took me seriously about burning the bedding.”

“Yep.”  I folded myself into one of the ironwork chairs.  “Cleaned out pretty much everything in that room.”    

“You did that all on your own?”  He sat down in the chair opposite of mine.  “I thought a neighbor or someone would -”

I gestured absently at he chair he’s sitting in and floated it a few inches off the ground.  He grabbed the arms and yelped in surprise. The dog gave me a disapproving look, and I let the chair settle back onto the ground.

“I’m not exactly helpless.”

“I see that.  But still. I’m sorry that you, uh, had to do that alone.”

“The  _ slivovitsa _ helped.”  I pulled the bottle out of my shirt pocket and drank the last mouthful.  I’d also been working a bottle of whiskey all day, half expecting Anna to step into the room and inform me that daydrinking is not a healthy coping strategy.  Staring at the fire, I shrug out of the bulky overshirt I have on, and toss it in with everything else. I should probably burn everything else I’ve worn today, but I suppose that can wait until Julian leaves.  “Thanks for that.”

“When is your husband getting back?”

“Husband?” I laughed, imagining Asra's face at having that vocabulary applied to him.  

“Sorry, I assumed with the ring and you, uh, said he.”

He's cute when he stammers.  Or maybe that was the alcohol talking.  

“You're observant.  'He’ is at best a term of convenience when talking about Asra.  I don't know what word you'd use for what we are.” Lovers. Non exclusive lovers.  Two people who keep coming home to each other. I curled my hand against my mouth, lips pressed against the ring I'm wearing.  “He should be home in the next week. Should be. Doesn't mean he will be. He gets distracted sometimes.”

“They've closed down the port.  I hear they're planning to seal off the city gates soon.”

“Oh, that won't stop him.  Why are you here, Dr. Devorak?  I can't imagine you take this much interest in the family of every person who dies.”

“I, well, I meant it when I said I thought you did everything you could, and I wanted to know more about what you used.”

“Ha.  She's still dead.”

“Yes, but...”

I sighed and began to rattle off what Anna and I tried - first for the neighbors and our customers who had come developed then sickness, then for her.  “Boneset and willow bark for the fever and aches. Start the tincture at the new moon so that it will draw out the active parts of the plant. Pleurisy root and horehound for the cough and the lung congestion as a oxymel.  A salve of ginger, arnica, and comfrey for swollen joints. Those should be extracted into an oil while the moon is waning. I use spellwork to complement the herbs, some of which I can attach to charms, some of which I have to be present to work.  All of that only treats the symptoms. We tried echinacea and elderberry to build immune systems, but it didn't work. I found a reference to an herb from the East that supposedly cured a plague there, but -” I shrugged, it was a folktale in an old book, not a solid lead.  “Asra is supposed to bring some back with him. But none of it really seems to do any good. Is there anything else you want to know?”

“I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to upset you.”

“I'm not upset.  I'm exhausted.” The dog pushed her head into my hands, and I scratched her ears absently.  “And the only family that gave a damn about me just died, so excuse me if my conversation skills are lacking.”

He's silent for a minute, then I heard him stand up.  He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Listen. Just, uh, think about this.  When you're ready, I could use an assistant, preferably someone who knows something, because nothing I've tried works either.”

I angrily wiped tears away from my eyes.  “What would be the point? No one recovers from this.”

“I want to be the kind of person who at least tries.”  He squeezed my shoulder and without thinking, my head fell against his arm.  “Just think about it, okay?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. I can be found on [tumblr](aria-i-adagio.tumblr.com).


	7. No One Here Gets Out Alive - Part 2

She’s not ready when they come for her.  Denial, not surprise. She knew they’d come.  Knew that someone would have seen the telltale red in her eyes and reported it to the authorities.  She had just convinced herself that she had a little more time. An hour. A few minutes. But more.

They forced the door - the people in the bird masks.  Light from her lamps glints red off the polished glass hiding their eyes.  One grabs her roughly by the shoulder. 

“It’s better if you cooperate,” a second one says.

A minute - just a minute.  She jerked free of the hands on her shoulders.  The shop, colored lamps and jars and a thousand subtly different smells spun around her as she groped behind the counter for paper, a stub of a pencil.  Just a minute. Need to leave something. Anything for him - either him - to find.

“Let her.”  It’s the second one.  The one without rough hands.

She twisted Asra’s ring off her finger and steadied her shaking hands long enough to scrawl artlessly across the scrap paper.  Weighted the paper down with the ring and drew a quick ward about them so that there were only two sets of hands that could touch either piece.  She shuddered when she looked back at the bird masks, but she nodded to them and took her cloak down from the hook by the door. It’s better if you cooperate.

 

_ J - I love you. I love you. I love you. _

__ _ You are good, and I love you. _

__ _ Tell him I didn’t take his ring off until now. _

__ _ I’m sorry. -D _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't sleep... le sigh.
> 
> BTW, "Five to One" by the Doors is the song I have in mine with the title.


	8. Kind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Out of order with the last bit I posted. During the plague.

“To a pyrrhic victory, if there ever was such a thing.”  Artemis raised her glass of beer in the air. I knocked mine against it.  “Suddenly, I’m competent again. Just in time for them to require us to turn in anyone showing signs of sickness.”  Her lips were twisted into a grimace. Artemis has been a midwife in Vesuvia for as long as I’m been her. Her mothers regularly bought simples and some charms and remedies from my aunt, rather than maintaining their own stores.  Artemis already had journeyman status under the old guild system when I arrived. A few months before the plague, the count (we had a rule of not calling him by his name) had promulgated a new law requiring that medical practitioners be licensed and restricting the midwives to assisting with births.  And that only reluctantly. My aunt and I had worked around it, by emphasizing that we were magicians, not healers or even apothecaries.

Now that his educated licensed doctors had either died from the plague, or been recalled to the palace to “research” possible cures, the midwives were allowed to treat the sick again.  Or rather, treat the sick and give their names to the bird masked plague doctors so they could be quarantined on the Lazaret. Quarantine - a convenient euphemism for sent to die.

“The intent of licenses wasn’t so much to declare people incompetent, so much as make sure people practicing medicine are competent.”  Julian’s sprawled across the table spinning the cork from a bottle of whiskey.

“Bullshit, dear boy.”  Artemis pats his shoulder fondly.  I was fairly certain Julian is a couple years older than she is, but she’s referred to him as “boy” or “the boy” since they were introduced.  In all fairness, she is the most mature of the three of us sitting around the table. “Power grab from a bunch of _‘formally_ _educated’_ men.  My mothers taught me as much as you know about treating the sick and ten times more than you know about births and babies, and this interloping peacock pretending to be a count wants to come in and say I’m competent to do one but not the other . . .”

“I know, I agree.  You know I think they should have given licenses to all the guild approved midwives.  And I’m not even sure Valdemar is human, to be honest.” Julian sat up long enough to take another drink, then slumped back down on the table, arms folded under his head.  “If it will make you feel any better, I’m still waiting for someone to finish the paperwork on my license.”

“Not really, dear.  But nice try.” She sips her beer.  “Why are they sending some of the sick to the palace?”

Julian sits up straight, eyes wide.  “Whatever you do, do not - do not - let people get sent to the palace.  Bribe the plague doctors - any kind of liquor should do. Take them to the docks yourself if you have to.  The Lazaret . . . the Lazaret is the better option.”

“Julian.”  I rubbed his shoulder, worried by the sudden fervor in his voice.  He had been summoned to the palace as well. He got away one or two nights a week, coming to stay with me in the shop.  Every time he came back, the circles around his eyes were darker and the tension in his body tighter. The past few times he had woken up before the sun, sobbing from nightmares.

Artemis looked from Julian to me, and then back again, worry in her deep set eyes.  “Well, on that ominous note -”

“No.  I know I exaggerate - sometimes - but not, not now.”

“I believe you, Julian.”  Her voice was quiet, serious.  She stood up and wrapped her shawl around her shoulders.  “The docks then. I’ll figure something out. Dema. I’ll let myself out.”  She nodded and left the kitchen. I heard the bell ring as she let herself out of the shop.

With a groan Julian laid back down on the table.  I ran my fingers through his hair. “Ilyushka -” I didn’t usually use his given name, much less the very familiar diminutive.  “Tell me what’s going on.”

He sat back up and pulled me closer to him on the bench, burying his face in my hair.  “I can’t. It’s forbidden. And anyway, I don’t, I don’t want you touched by that.”

I snuggled against his chest for a minute, then stood up with a sigh, pulling on his hand.  “Come on, darling. Let’s go to bed.” He went to the bedroom. I poured us both a mug of lukewarm tea - second steeping, so it shouldn’t keep us awake.  There were enough other things in the world to accomplish that.

Julian had his boots off and was sitting on the edge of the bed, head in his hands when I push past the curtain that serves as a door.  I sat down next to and nudged his arm, pushing the mug into his hands. “Drink that. You need something other than alcohol in you.”

He drank the tea in a couple utilitarian gulps and set the empty mug aside before leaning over to nuzzle my neck.  I tilted my head to the side, indulging myself for a moment before turning toward him and undoing the one or two buttons that remained fastened on his shirt.  Cupping his face in my hands, I ran my thumbs along the dark circles under his eyes then pulled his face down to mine and kissed him, tugging his bottom lip between my teeth.  He groaned and leaned into my embrace as I ran my to the back of his neck, over the tense muscles there. “Okay, love, shirt off, on your stomach.”

He hesitated.  “Dema -”

“Don’t argue.  Right now, I want to take care of you.”  

He pressed his forehead against mine then shrugged out of his shirt, laid back on the bed and rolled over.  I climbed onto the bed, straddling his waist, and dragged my hands down either side of his spine, then worked back up his back to knead his shoulders, leaning forward to kiss the back of his neck.

“I worry about you.”

“Why?”

“Because you're a kind man in what sounds more and more like a deeply unkind place.”

He was quiet for a moment, then sighed heavily.  “Oh,  _ solnishka _ , I’m not so sure I can be called kind anymore.  Or ever again. Not after all this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Sketch of Artemis can be found on [my tumblr](https://aria-i-adagio.tumblr.com/post/179533639469/truly-the-acana-game-has-eaten-my-brain-if-im), if you want to know what she looks like. :)


	9. Afraid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Follows Asra’s first trip to the Lazaret. Heavy angst. Hallucinations.

Knocking at the front door of the shop almost woke Asra.  He fluttered his eyes open for a moment and ran his fingers over Faust before pulling the ragged, little bundle closer and rolling over in the nest of pillows in the back room.  The knocking continued; he ignored it.

The creaks as the lock of the front door turns and the hinges are forced open sounded like screeches, accompanied by stabs of red light behind his eyes.  A male voice, one he doesn’t recognize called out, hesitantly.

“Hello?  Um, hey, Asra?”

He sat up slowly and rubbed a sooty hand across his equally sooty face.  Faust licked his arm then slithered off to the front room of the shop. He pauses a moment, then tucks his bundle into a corner, safe beneath a blanket.  His legs are shaking when he pulled himself upright. He’s not sure how long he’s been curled up, not sure whether awake or asleep was the more tolerable state.  There’s a surprised yelp from the front room. Asra pushed back the curtain, ready to throw out the intruder, if whoever it was would want to stay after seeing a haunted wreck covered in ash.

“Who are you?”

“Oh, um.  Artemis told me you had come back.  I . . . That must be Faust.” The intruder is a young man, tall and ridiculously skinny for his height.  

“Who are you?  And how do you have a key to the shop?”

“I . . . maybe you should sit down.  You don’t look like you should be standing.”

He was right about that, at least.  Asra stepped behind the counter and dragged over one of the stools, sitting heavily down on it, the rest of his weight on his arms in front of him.  “You still haven’t answered either question.”

“I’m . . . uh, Julian.”

Asra raised his eyes back to the man’s face.  Angular bones, eyes lost in dark circles, sharp, aquiline nose.  And a liar. At least, lying about his name. “That’s not your real name.”

“Ilya. It’s Ilya.”

Faust curled around Asra’s shin, working her way up to his lap.  He started to push his hair back out of his face, forgetting that his hands were rubbed raw, then hissed and dropped his hand back to the counter.  “And how do you have key, Ilya?” 

“Dema gave it to me.”  Ilya placed a key on the counter.  “She, um, wanted me to give this back to you too.”  He reached into the chest pocket of his jacket and set a small object down.  A simple ring, gold and silver twisted together. Asra’s breath caught in his throat and he closed his fingers around it.  He had given it to her, something simple that wouldn’t catch of anything when she was working. He’d a spell worked into it without telling her, so that he’d know if she was in trouble.

_ Knowing doesn’t help when you left me. _  Her voice is a whisper behind him. _  Left and went as far away as you could. _  Asra stopped himself from looking over his shoulder.  He won’t see her there, won’t see her at all. He closed a trembling hand around the ring and looked back up.  Ilya was watching him, eyebrows furrowed in concern.

“You’re the reason she stayed, aren’t you?  The reason she’s -” He jerked his hand back to his chest, clutching the ring and ignoring how it cut deeper into his torn palm.  Dropping his eyes to the counter, he hissed. “Get out.”

“Your hands.  Those need to be cleaned.  Bandaged.”

“Didn’t you hear me?  Get. Out.”

“I did.  But I’m not going to until you let me get those cleaned and dressed.”

“What does it matter to you?”

“I cared about her.  She cared about you, so, um, by extension . . .”

Asra picked up Faust and draped her around his neck.  She settled around his shoulder with a reassuring squeeze.   _ Let help. _

“Okay.”  Still leaning heavily on the counter, Asra staggered across the room and slowly up the stairs.  The man - Ilya - followed him, at one point catching Asra’s elbow and steadying him. He settled Asra into one of the chairs at the table, filled the kettle with water, knelt down by the stove to ask the salamander to light it, and then disappeared into the bedroom returning with a blanket that he draped around Asra’s shoulders.

“You seem to know where everything is.”

“Um, yes, about that . . .”  

Asra looked over.  Ilya was reaching into one of the upper cabinet for a bowl.  For a second, he she’s her there, arms wrapped around Ilya’s waist, head pressed against his back, barely reaching his shoulder blades.  Then she’s not there. Ilya filled it with cool water and sat down across the table from him.

“Give me your hands.”

Asra set the ring he was clutching down on the table and complied, feeling too numb to protest again that he could take care of himself.  Ilya turns them over in his own larger, slender hands, studying the abrasions. “How did you do this?”

“Digging.”

Ilya arched an eyebrow at him, but didn’t ask any further questions, instead just washing away the worst of the soot and ash with water that stung despite having nothing in it.  “She kept your ring on, if it makes any difference. And she said you’d change your mind and come back.”

_ You can’t be left if you’re the one always doing the leaving.  Right, Asra? _  Her voice again.  Asra glanced to the side and saw her out of the corner of his eyes, leaning against the counter.  

“If she had come with me, she’s be fine now.”  He looked back at Ilya and felt a moment of regret when he saw tears forming in the man’s already sad eyes.  “I’m - why are you helping me?”

_ Maybe he’s a better person than you. _

“I told you.”  Ilya dumped the water, grey from soot into the sink, rinses the bowl and refills it with hot water from the kettle, before rummaging in the cabinet where Anna, and then Dema had kept various things for minor cuts and burns.  “She’s want me to.” He added something to the hot water from a bottle and retrieved a bundle of clean old rags torn into strips for bandages a tin with a salve Asra recognizes - extracts of various antiseptic herbs in aloe. He sat back down and soaked one of the bandages in the hot water before picking up Asra’s hand again.  “This stuff does sting. Do you, uh, think you could conjure one of those light ball thing? It's starting to get dark in here.”

Ilya turns Asra's hands this way and that, carefully inspecting the abrasions and cuts for any remaining dirt.  Asra hissed in surprise when he drew out a splinter from his palm. Probably bone, but he'll keep that to himself.  Finally satisfied, Ilya dabbed ointment on the worst of the cuts and neatly wound bandages around Asra's palms and the first two fingers of his left hand.

“There.”  Ilya sat back and looks at him.  “You should keep a close eye on those, nothing is deep but you tore a lot of skin.  Oh, your face, didn't think about that. I can -”

“Leave it.”  He flexed his hand experimentally.

“Are you sure? You -”

“I'm sure.”  Ashes. In some places he had visited mourners marked themselves with ashes.  He'd leave them for now.

_ The ashes of the actual dead, Asra.  That's a step farther, don't you think? _  She's sitting across from him, leaning over the table, chin propped up on her hands.  She sat back in her chair, then leaned against Ilya, arm curling around his.  _ Ash grey isn’t a good color on you - someone might think you've seen a ghost. _

Ilya shrugged.  “It's, um, your call.  I -”

“Go.  I can care of myself.  I always have.”

Ilya nodded then started down the stairs.  He stopped and turned back, one hand still resting on the railing of the stairs.  “I'm sorry. That I couldn't - that I didn't - keep her safe.”

Asra said nothing, looking down at his hands, and after a long moment, Ilya left.

Across the table, she her lips quirked into a cold smile.   _ And what did you do, sweetheart?   _ Quicker than he could possibly respond she's gone, leaving behind an impish laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading.
> 
> I'm going to go snuggle a cat and try to switch my brain to nanowrimo mode.
> 
> Happy Halloween.


	10. A Punk Who Rarely Ever Took Advice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh...so... out. of. order.
> 
> Trigger warnings: self harm, excoriation, dissociation

I scrubbed the shop: attic to basement.  Hot water and strong vinegar until the skin started to peel from my fingers.  Scalded every piece of fabric I could. Laid the cushions and blankets out for the sun to purify.  Paced the shop with burning sage. I filled the tub with water as hot as I could stand and crawled in, worrying at my hands and arms with a pumice stone until the abrasions began to bleed, like the day bleeding into the night then back again.  And when I couldn't lift another finger, I fell out on the cushions in the backroom and waited, staring at the ceiling for hours until I thought of something I might forgotten to clean, to burn, to purify. And then I did it. First time, second time, third, fifth, eighth - it didn't matter, so long as it was something to keep the silence beginning to scream again.

I think it was the third day that Asra came home.  I was buried under a pile of blankets in the backroom, dozing.  I half roused when his dropped his bundles on the floor, and then his hands were on my shoulders, pulling me upright, pushing hair back out of my face.  “Dema?” 

“She's dead.  She's dead, and you weren't here, and I've been alone, and, and . . .”

“She?  Anna?” Asra gathered me into his arms.  “Oh.” He rocked back and forth, pressing his face into the top of my head.  Faust, cool and smooth, wrapped around my shoulders. Asra shook with the sobs that I had cried out days before day.

At some point, curled together in a little pile of misery, we fell asleep.

 

~~~~

 

I reopened the shop two days after Asra returned.  One person knocked on the door to see if I had any herbs left, and then slowly, more people wandered in - more than I thought would have braved the specter of a plague death.  But then, there wasn’t much of anywhere left that wasn’t sepulchral. 

One visitor was the doctor.

Asra was out of the shop, trying to track down honey.  I had run out, and while most of the herbs for coughs were useful without it, they really did do best compounded in a oxymel.  

The doctor waited patiently, studying the intricate diagrams with which Anna had decorated the shop, while I explained a charm to a customer.  (Customer might not have been the right term. Anna and I had stopped charging for anything related to treating the plague weeks before.) I wrapped the enchanted trinket up in paper, and the customer left, doorbell ringing behind them.

“Can I get you something Dr - uhm.”  I blanked entirely on his name.

He winked at me and smiled.  “Just call me Julian. No, I just wanted to check on you.  And thank you.”

“For what?”

“The, um, suggestions you gave me.  They’ve been helping. Really, more than anything else I was trying.”

“But not a cure,” I said softly as I stepped out from behind the counter.

“No.  But it’s more than what I had to work with before.”  He looked away from me, back to one of the geometric designs on the wall.  “Have you thought about it?”

“About what?”  He began to trace the pattern on the diagram; I pushed his hand away from it.  The lines were part of an array for recombining the energies of various substances.  Anna really shouldn’t have put them on the wall where a curious person could unknowing activate them.  

“Working with me.  I meant it when I said I could use your help.”

“I . . . actually, I had forgotten.”

“It’s okay.  You’ve been -”

“- but I will.  Think about it, I mean.”

He smiled again.  Lopsided, the left corner of his mouth picking up a moment before the right.  “I’m glad to hear that. Here.” He extended his hand, offering me a folded square of paper.  “That’s the address of the clinic I run. South side.”

I tucked the paper into my pocket.  “I’ll think about it. Really.”

“I’ll just hope I see you again then.  Soon, maybe.” 

 

~~~~

 

There wasn’t much left in the market anymore.  The city’s stockpile of grain hadn’t run out yet, so the baker was still producing bread, but simple utilitarian loaves.  No decadent pastries or pumpkin bread rich and warm with spice. I had been able to trade a basket of eggs from my chickens for a few days worth of tea, which was rapidly becoming scarce now that the harbor had closed.  Beyond the bread, Asra and I had been largely eating from my neglected vegetable garden, the market stalls where virtually empty. 

I climbed the stairs to the kitchen above the shop and found Asra packing.

“You’re leaving me again?”

“What?  No.” He looked up from the bundle he was assembling on the kitchen table.  “You’re coming with me.”

“Asra, I can’t leave.”  A steady stream of people had continued to come to the shop.  I could give them blends to ease fevers and coughs. Charms that would soothe aching bodies.  All symptom management, but it was something. Something that I could do. I placed the loaf of bread on the counter and tucked my small packet of tea safely into the cabinet.  “Besides, the entire city is closed off.”

“I know ways out of the city that the guards don’t.”  Asra took the bread from the counter and added it to his bundle.  I snatched it out and returned it to the counter. Faust lifted her head from her basket in the south window, tongue flicking, attention shifting between the two of us.

“There are people still asking me to help them.  I can’t just abandon them.”

“I don’t care about them, Dema.  I care about you. We need to go somewhere safe.”  He took my hands in his, lifting them and pressing his lips to my fingers.  “Anywhere but here.”

“I’m not leaving, Asra.”

“Don’t you understand?  If we stay here, we will die.  You said yourself there’s no cure.”

“I’d rather die doing the right thing.  Anna-”

“Is dead!  She’s dead, and I can’t lose you too.  I just can’t.” He held my hand as tightly as his gaze holds my eyes.  “Please, just let me make this decision. Dema, you aren’t thinking straight.”

“What do you mean?”

He turns my left arm over, running his thumb down the scarred skin to where I have a bandage tied loosely over three new, evenly, precisely spaced burns from when I had found a handwritten note listing her modifications to a recipe, and I needed - I swear - to interrupt the emotions that started to swirl like smoke creeping beneath a door, to wrap around my limbs pulling, tugging me back to listlessness.  

I jerk my arm out of his grasp.  “Fuck you. That’s not fair.”

“Dema.”  He reaches for me again, and I step back, just out of his reach.  “I have to keep you safe.”

“Mad or not, I still get to make my own decisions.  You don’t get to take that from me.”

He stood quietly, trembling.  When he spoke, his voice was soft.  “I didn’t say you were mad. I can’t watch you die.”

“Then don’t.”  I wrapped my arms close around my chest, shoulders huncing forward.  “Leave. I won’t stop you.”

Asra stared at me, silent, every muscle in his body taut.  “Fine,” he said finally. Abandoning his half packed bundle, he took his flamboyantly feathered hat and iridescent scarf down from the wall and lifted Faust from her basket and curled her around his shoulders.  As he stomped down the stairs, she looked back over his shoulder at me, eyes blinking in confusion. 

I told myself he’d be back.  Probably before the sun set.

 

He wasn’t back that night.  Or the next day.

 

The second morning, I knocked on Julian’s door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I did intend for Asra to come off as an ass, since he *is* being one. That said, I actually think his behavior is understandable. Not right, but it makes sense that he’s going to be very intent on not losing the handful of people he’s allowed himself to care about. Fear is his primary motivation for most of the less than stellar things he’s done.
> 
> Chapter title is from The Verve Pipe, "The Freshmen" in case you're not an 'ancient' crone who made mix tapes off the radio in the late nineties/early aughts. :P
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	11. Chapter 11

The shelf that hid the passageway down into the dungeon where the doctors worked groaned open.  Ilya, disheveled and with bloodstains on the sleeves of his shirt, staggered out. He pushed the shelf back into place and leaned his forehead against it, shoulders trembling.

Asra set aside his book.  “You look worse than usual.” 

Ilya, for once, said nothing.  

Faust poked her head out of Asra's shirt and tested the air in Ilya's direction.  “ _ Okay _ ?”

“I don't think so,” Asra murmured.

_ “Help?” _

“Not my business, Faust.”

She turned her head and fixed her eyes on him, sticking out her tongue.   _ “Dema’s friend.  Help.” _

Asra attempted to stare down his familiar before sighing loudly and clambering out of his nest of cushions.  “Ilya, are you alright?” Asra stopped. Ilya was hunched over, forehead pressed against a shelf, actually crying.  And not dignified crying, even if he had himself relatively under control. “What happened?”

There was a lag before Ilya answered.  “I can't keep doing this, Asra. They've all gone mad.”

“Who's gone mad?”

“Everyone down there.”  Ilya slams his fist into the frame of the bookcase.  Asra winces, but the motion didn't actually threaten any of the books.  “No one says no, stop . . . this isn't right.”

“Did you?”

“I -”  Ilya falters.  “I'm a coward as well.”

Faust hisses her disapproval in Asra's ear.  “Valdemar is pretty terrifying. I'm not sure I'd want to naysay them either.”

“That doesn't.  I should, someone should stop all this.”  Ilya leans back against the bookcase, shoulders still shaking.  

Asra glanced to his side.  He could just see her, in the corner of his vision, arms folded across her chest, waiting for him to do something.  She had cared for this mess of a man after all. Asra resigned himself to what he was about to do and put a hand on Ilya's arm.

“Come on, Ilya, let's get you back to your room.  You're clearly done for the day.”

“I, I'm not supposed to be.  I just walked out. Valdemar -”

“Will continue to be a creepy menace.”  Asra tugged on Ilya's arm, already regretting trying to help.  “Come.”

The guest room in which Nadia has established Ilya wasn't far from the library.  Or far from Lucio's wing of rooms which was convenient if the count wanted to rail at the doctor in a fit of temper, but undoubtedly inconvenient for Ilya, for whom the Count seemed to have an unhealthy obsession.  (Probably because the red head was so easily pushed around.) No wonder Ilya spent so much of his free time in the library. 

Asra stopped Julian from flinging himself onto the bed in he clothes he had on.  “You're still covered in blood, Ilya.”

“I -” Ilya opened his mouth then closed it again, staring down at his shaking hands.  “I'll never get it off,” he mumbled. 

Asra pushed him toward the small bath at the side of the guest room.  “You'll be shocked to discover the magic of water then. Go on.”

Ilya stumbled in, stop mumbling to himself, but did thankfully remember to shut the door behind him.  Asra started to leave - getting Ilya back to his room should be enough, right? - but paused for a moment, examining the contents of the shelves in Julian's rooms.  He picked up a tiny sculpture, modeled from clay and painted in fanciful colors. He recognized it. She'd make ones to complement the wood carvings he did, in color at least, his were recognizable as specific animals, hers never quite intended to be anything so mundane.  A beaded wristband lay to one side, and an embroidered scarf - he could see it tied in her hair if he closed his eyes - was folded beneath them both. He moved aside the figurine and picked up the scarf, holding it close to his face. It still smelled of cedar and rosemary and her.

Asra started as the door to the bath creaked open again.  He put the scarf back down on the shelf.

“Oh, I, uh, didn't think you'd still be here.”  

Out of the corner of his eye, Asra caught the motions of Ilya hurriedly wrapped a towel around his waist.  He turned back around, hands folded behind him.

“Are you going to be okay?”

“What is okay anymore?”  Ilya - still dripping wet - sat down on the edge of his bed.  “Anyone who is okay with all this, there's something seriously wrong with them.”

“I should be going.”  Asra turned toward the door, ignoring Faust's protesting squeeze on his bicep.

“What are you actually trying to do, Asra?”

“What?”

“I can't read all the books you have stacked into that fort of yours, much less understand them, but they're not about curing diseases or ending plagues.”

“I -”  Asra turned back around.  Ilya's grey eyes were clearly focused for the first time since he had emerged from the passageway and into the library.  Asra fidgeted with his shirt sleeve, trying to think up a lie. 

Ilya looked away after a moment and leaned over picking up a half empty bottle of liquor from the floor beside the bed.  He pulled the cork out and took a long drink, before setting it aside, this time on the bedside table at least. “I miss her.”

“I'm going to get her back.”  The words were quick, a single breath that Asra immediately regretted and immediately felt relieved by.

The uncannily calm look Ilya gave him was somehow devoid of any disbelief..  “I hope you do, Asra.”


	12. It Doesn't Fit My Plans, but I've Got that Taste in My Mouth Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from PULP, F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.  
> These all continue to be very, very out of order.

At first, Vesuvia's bars and taverns had been quiet.  People tried to avoid contact with anyone who might be carrying the plague.  But as the sickness continued, as it became clear that no one and no where was safe, they picked back up with people seeking a break from the disaster.  When the sun set, the city turned into a massive wake, toasting the memories of the dead and the dying, and frantically clinging to what life was left.

Julian's preferred bar was on the south side of the city.  It was loud and chaotic, with cheap food and even cheaper alcohol; although, they did brew a particularly good stout that I could pretend was a sufficient supper.  

Inevitably as the night continued, the tables would be pulled back to the walls, leaving space for dancing along to music from a motley group of instrumentalists and singers.  I was three weeks into working with Julian and several drinks into the night when he offered a hand and pulled me onto the dance floor, whirling about to a fast tune. I laughed aloud, the first real laugh since Asra had left and pressed myself against him, face barely reaching his chest when the dance allowed.  He smelled of liquor and medicinal herbs, and underneath that salt and the sea. The music slowed and his hands rested on my waist for a moment, then shipped just a little lower. There was a question in his eyes when I looked up, and in response, I put my hands over his and shamelessly slid them even lower inviting him to curl his long fingers around my ass.  He looked lost for a moment, then lifted me up easily. I tossed my arms around his shoulders for balance, and he leaned his face close to my ear.

“What about him?”

Hands behind Julian's neck, I twisted the ring if Asra's that I still wore on my finger.

“Fuck him.  I love him.”  If my answer contradicted itself, I didn't care.  Asra had left me, and Julian was here. Here encouraging the work I wanted to do anyway, not trying to pull me away, convince me that I was too damaged, too mad, too sick in the head to make decisions for myself.  “But he doesn't own me.” I tangled my fingers in Julian's curly hair. “You, I like. Quite a bit.”

“I, um, like you too.”  He blushed. With color spreading across his pale cheeks, he’s adorable.  I slid along his body, as he sets me back down on the floor. With my feet on the ground, the top of my head barely reached his sternum.  I took his arm and led him back to the table tucked in the back corner, where our almost empty drinks and my satchel have been reserving our spot.

He gestured to the barmaid for another round.  “So -” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Is this okay?”

In response I snuggled against him.  He's warm, and it's nice to be held at the end of day that involved as much death as all the days now do.  “It's good even.”

The barmaid returned and set down another one of the awful cocktails Julian drinks and a tumbler with two fingers whiskey for me.  (It wasn't too atrocious if I got a bit tipsy from the beer before switching over). As she walked away, she gave me a smile and conspiratorial wink.

Julian's forearm draped across my chest, heavy against my breast.  He tossed back half of his drink and looked down at me. “This probably isn't a good idea.”

I sipped my whiskey and imagined that it has something akin to layers of sweetness and smoke beneath the firey burn that coats my mouth.  It doesn't. “Honestly, I'm not known for making good decisions.”

He laughed then scooped me up into his lap, another few inches closer to his pretty mouth.  “I'm not either. Uh, known for good decisions.”

“Well then.”  I set my drink back down on the table and curved one hand around his face.  “We'll make quite the feckless pair then.”

I didn't have to pull him down for a kiss.  Reading my intent, he leaned down to me. The first kiss was hesitant, close mouthed.  I pulled him back and worked my mouth around his bottom lip tracing it with my tongue, until his mouth was mine, and his hands were tight on my back, and a couple of the other bar patrons were cheering us on. 

He broke away, blushing again, biting his own lip.  “Maybe we should, uh, go take a walk?”

“I think that's a good idea.”

“Mmmm, me too.”

“Then maybe it's actually a bad one.  If you know, we both think it's good.”

He grinned.  “Do you care if it is?”

“No.”  I tossed back the rest of my whiskey, and he finished his drink.  We settled up our tabs at the bar and left. I held on to Julian's arm in the street.  I was pleasantly buzzed, and I liked the feeling of him beside me. 

The water in the canal glinted red in the moonlight.  Part of the reason the bars were doing such good business was because beer was far safer to drink at this point.  We stopped on a bridge over the canal, looking up at the moon.

“It doesn't seem right that the night sky is still so beautiful.”

Julian picked me up and sat me on the bridge railing.  “I'm glad it is. There might has well be something beautiful let.  Uh, other than you.”

“I'm not beautiful.”  Cute, yes. Pretty, maybe on a good day, but beautiful, no.

“I thought you were beautiful the first time I saw you.  Even with your hair tied under a bandana and eyes that hasn't slept in days.”

“Hmph.  Flatterer.”  I wrapped my legs around his waist and leaned my head against his shoulder.  He embraced me back, clever hands untying the band that held my hair in a sensible braid and loosening it.

“I've been daydreaming for weeks about playing with your hair.”

I pressed a close mouthed kiss to the spot where his jaw and neck met and carded my fingers into his hair.  “Same.” Sitting on the railing, my face was level with his, the right height for kissing, and we did, until we were threatening to lose our balance and topple into the canal.

Julian's room above the clinic was closer.  He paused on the steps to rub Brundle's belly.  She kicked her back leg in delight, and gave me a baleful look when Julian's hand left her to tug me up the stairs after him.  In contrast to the orderly clinic downstairs, the room he slept in was a chaotic bachelor's nest, clothes tossed haphazardly over the backs of chairs, a perch set up near a partially open window for the raven that sometimes followed him around to land on.  The window was in a dormer, but half of the ceiling sloped down along with the roof. Well enough for someone short like me, but that meant he couldn't stand up straight in a decent portion of the space.

“It's not, um, much.”

“It's fine.  My shop is a disaster right now.  Well, not the shop, but I haven't put the upstairs back to rights yet.”  Everything had been scrubbed, multiple times, but the bedroom was still devoid of any soft surfaces: curtains, pillows, blankets, even the mattress - I had fed all those into a fire.  I was sleeping in back room, nestled in pile of cushions and blankets that smelled of cardamon and sandalwood - of Asra.

He say down on the bed and took my hands, pulling me to him.  “Is this still something you want to do? It's fine if -”

“Yes, but -”  The but surprised me.  I had had other lovers before, usually just someone from a bar for one or two nights.  Once - for several months while her ship was dry docked for repairs - a beautiful sailor with wild hair and hands that had an extra knack for tying knots.  But even then, it was just physical attraction, just sex, no emotional attachment. When the repairs were finished, we said goodbye and she sailed away, and Asra had my full attention again.  But, this was . . . different, somehow. Confusing in a way I couldn't attribute to alcohol or stress.

“But what?”

“Maybe just keep to kissing tonight.  Hands are okay.”

He smiled up at me.  “That's fine. I don't want to do anything you don't.”

I climbed on top of him, straddling his hips.  “And you? Is this still a good bad idea, Julian?”

He got a strange look in his eyes.  “It's actually Ilya.”

“What?”

“My name.  I, uh, use Julian, here at least it sounds more normal her, in Vesuvia.  But Ilya is my given name.”

“Huh.  I like it.  Il-ya.”

He chuckled.  “Not quite. The connection between the first and last syllables is softer.”  He repeated it and I tried again, earning another laugh. “Closer.”

“I'll get it.”

“Mmm.”  He pressed his forehead against mine.  “I'm sure you will. Your tenacity is impressive.  And your name is curious. It's an, um, nickname at home.  But for a boy's name - Dmitri. You sure it's not short for anything?”

I shrugged.  “I'm pretty sure my parents just liked the way it sounded.  Or it was easy to yell when I was in trouble.”

“Oh, did you get in trouble a lot?”

“All the time.  Definite problem child.”  It's not a lie; it's just not a truthful answer to the question he meant.  I didn't get in trouble a lot when I was little. I was the quiet kid in the corner reading a book, or digging clay out if the creek bank to mold into trinkets.  I didn't become the problem child until later. Much later actually. And then I never stopped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	13. I'm Not a Bad Man, I'm Just Overwhelmed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from She Wants Revenge, "These Things"

 

It had been a long day.  Julian studiously avoided rehearsing any of it in his head as he walked down the palace hallway.  With any luck (and a goodly amount of liquor) he'd forget most of it. A smudge on one of the columns stopped him short with a shudder.  There had been new handprints on the passage leading to Valdemar's lab this morning. Tiny and barely two feet off the ground. Children's handprints.

He pushed his hair back from his face and mumbled to himself.  “Don't think about, just don't.”

There was one upside to Lucio's fixation on him.  He had a guest room in the main palace and did not have to sleep in one of those tiny dungeon cells in the laboratory, even if he probably deserved to.  It wasn't as good as escaping into the city . . . No, don't think about that either.

Laughter rolled in from the veranda.  Julian peeked around the door frame. The Countess lounged beside a table, set with fruits, cheeses, and several bottles of wine.  Asra stood behind her, working her hair into an elaborate system of braids. Ah, yes, she had mentioned that Asra was rather good at that.  Asra's snake was draped around the Countess's neck. As Julian watched, Faust lifted her head, and poked her tongue out in his direction. The Countess looked up and caught him standing there.  She smiled. She did have a charming smile.

“Doctor, please, come join us.”

Asra looked less than thrilled about her invitation.  Julian stepped around the door frame and rubbed his hands together in front of him.  He had worn gloves all day; there shouldn't be any blood on them. “Um, my lady, thank you, but I was just headed back to my room.”

“Nonsense.”  The Countess sat upright and rang a little bell.  When a servant appeared a moment later she instructed them to bring a third glass.  “As you can see, Doctor, there is more food here than my friend and I can possibly eat, and while we're doing our best with the wine, some assistance would be appreciated.  Have you met Asra?”

Asra dropped Nadia's hair and gave Julian a cool look.

“Ilya and I have met.”

“Ilya?”  The Countess looked at Julian with surprise.

“Um, yes, different form of my name. Asra and I are, uh, often in the library together.”

“Studying.”  Asra sat down on the end of Nadia's chaise and extended his arm for Faust, who coiled lazily around it, working her way up to his shoulders.  

“Excellent.  No need for introductions then.”  Nadia gestured to the empty chair across from her.  Julian reluctantly folded himself into it, taking some consolation from the servants reappearance with another wine glass, which was promptly filled for him.  “Where's that darling old hound of yours, Dr. Devorak? She always cheers me.”

“Brundle? Oh, she's usually with the Count during the day.  Mercedes and Melchior have taken to her.”

“Really?”  The Countess's eyebrows arched as she took a drink of her wine, nowhere near dainty enough to be called a sip.  “Well, Lucio is good with animals, if nothing else. Have you eaten, Doctor? Help yourself.”

Julian had not eaten.  He helped himself to several toasted slices of bread, spread with a soft herbed cheese.  The Countess smiled at him.

“Asra tells me that he's making progress with his studies, but is frustratingly vague with the details.  Perhaps you have some more concrete discoveries to share?”

“I'm afraid not, my lady.  I'm, um, sorry to disappoint you.”

“Please, just Nadia.  Too few people use my actual name these days.”

“Um, yes, of course, my, uh, Nadia.”

Asra badly hid a laugh behind his hand, and the Countess - Nadia - gave him a scolding look.

“I haven't really spoken to you since the Masquerade.  Quite neglectful on my part. Have you been well? How is that lovely young woman you brought with you?  The one in that dramatic red dress.”

“I, uh...” Julian looked down at his hands.  They were trembling. At the limit of his vision, he could see Faust settling herself closer about Asra's shoulders.

“I -”  Nadia reached across the table and set her hands on top of his.  “I'm sorry, Julian.”

Still sitting on the edge of the chaise, Asra picked up full wine glass and drained most of it.  Julian wondered if she knew Asra's story. If she did, clearly she hadn't connected the two.

“Noddy!  There you are!”  Lucio's voice interrupted.  

With a long-suffering sigh, Nadia leaned back on her chaise, pinching the bridge of her nose.  “Yes, dear, here I am.”

Lucio strode onto the veranda, followed by Mercedes, Melchior, and Brundle, who made a beeline for Julian.  Relieved, he leaned over and embraced the wrinkly hound, rubbing her ears and reassuring her that she had very much been missed during the day.

“You missed riding with me this evening, Noddy.”  Lucio pulled an additional chair over to the table and sprawled in it, legs spread wide.

“Ah, yes, another headache, I'm afraid.”

Lucio chose a pear from the platter of fruit and bit into it, juice running down his chin.  “I see you're well enough to entertain guests. Jules - found a cure yet? And -” Lucio's attention shifted to Asra.  “Who is this pretty pet of yours, darling?”

“Asra is an accomplished magician and using the library to research possible cures for the plague.”

“A magician?  Fancy that. I practice a bit of magic myself.”

Asra refilled his wine glass and raised his eyebrows at Lucio.  Withering - withering was the correct word for that look. Asra drained another half glass of wine.  “Practice? That's very well. But have you learned any.” Julian busied himself rubbing Brundle’s ears and waited for Lucio's temper to explode.

“Well-” Lucio leaned forward, a predatory smile on his face.  “Perhaps I need a private lesson or two.”

Asra set his glass aside and picked at his nails.  “I don't give lessons, private or otherwise.”

“Oh, I'm sure I could make it worth your while.”

“Lucio, please.”

“Just a joke, Noddy.  A joke.”

“Hmph.”  Nadia took another so of her wine.  Lucio finished his pear and tossed the core to the Mercedes and Melchior who promptly began to snap at each other over it.

“Say Asra, did you know that Jules here cut off my arm?”

“I didn't actually -”

“- close enough.   Terrible time, but I did end up with this beauty.” Lucio extended his golden arm across the table and tried to brush the fingertips to Asra's face.  Asra leaned back out of Lucio's reach and narrowed his eyes. Julian just caught him make a subtle, but deliberate gesture with his hand. A wind, incongruous with the previously still air, started to blow across the veranda.

“It's one of a kind,” Lucio continued.  “I made sure of that, had the magicians who made it out to death.”

The wind gusted, hard enough to flip the lightweight table over on Lucio, and everyone was hit with a burst of cold rain.  All three dogs started barking. Asra's upper lip curled in satisfaction. Nadia glanced at the magician, then turned her cool, knowing eyes back to her husband, who was occupied with brushing the remains of food from his wine soaked clothes.

“What strange weather!”  The Countess rose from her chaise.  “I believe we should all retire for the night.  Asra, Dr. Devorak, good evening to you both.”

Her elegant exit was somewhat spoiled by her husband’s raging as he followed after her.  Mercedes and Melchior busied themselves with the fallen fruit and cheese, while Brundle flopped down and watched them, head resting on her front paws.

“That was an impressive way to end the evening.”

“Not nearly impressive enough.”  When Asra stood, he swayed drunkenly on his feet.  “I should go home now.”

Julian trailed him from the veranda and wondered just how many bottles of wine had been finished before he arrived.  Asra made it past the arch of the hallway before stumbling. Julian caught his elbow before he fell in the floor. Asra pulled away from him and leaned against the wall, forehead pressed to the cool marble.  Faust poked her head out from underneath a scarf and flicked her tongue against his ear.

“Please don't tell me you intend to walk home in this state.”

“Mmmhmm... Not staying here.”  Asra lifted his hand and scratched Faust's chin.  “Not with him around.”

“Asra, you're drunk.”

“No shit, Ilya.”

Julian sighed and prepared himself for an argument he was uncertain he wanted to win.  “I'll walk with you then. Make sure you get home.”

“Okay.”

“... Okay?”

“Yeah.” Asra stood up straight for a moment, steadying himself against the wall, before one leg wobbled.  Julian looped one arm through Asra's, expecting to be pushed away. Instead, the magician leaned against his shoulder.  

~~~~  


“So, you cut off his arm?”  Asra's speech was remarkably clear for his degree of drunkenness.

“That's what he keeps telling everyone.  I mean, I helped with the operation - as much as you can, um, call battlefield surgery an operation, it's more that butchery where you hope you don't actually slaughter anything.”  Julian sighed and keep talking; it was better than silence. “I was fifteen. I had decided to leave home and have some adventures. Signed up with a mercenary army. They let me for some reason.  Then their head medic pulled me aside and informed that I was too damn young to fight and I'd be assisting him instead. Two weeks later saw my first battle. It was . . . well, I'd probably be dead right now if not for that medic.  Who knows everyone might have been better off.”

Asra stopped and looked up at him, eyes inscrutable.  Then patted Julian's hand and awkwardly looked away. “You couldn't have just let him bleed out?  That might have helped.”

“You don't just let the commander bleed out.”  Julian started walking again. They were close to the shop.  He could drop Asra off, put a pitcher of water and an empty bowl near him, and then find his own bed.  “He could have, pretty easily. Caught a direct hit of shrapnel from a canon. There wasn't actually much to cut off.  Artillery is nasty business.” He's watched his mentor slit more than one throat. The old man said he could maybe keep some of them alive a day or two longer, but it'd be cruelty, not kindness.  “Lucio tells everyone he endured the whole thing without making a sound. Liar. He screamed the whole time. Not, uh, that that's unexpected. It's the lying part that it just entirely Lucio. Ah, here we are.”

Asra traced a design on the door, unlocking it without a key and stumbled into Dema's shop - no, Asra's shop.  He say down heavily on the floor behind the counter and rummaged through a cabinet, until he found a small bottle.  “Hangover remedy,” he mumbled as he pulled the stopper out and tossed it back.

“Yeah, you still need sleep and water.”

Without responding, Asra levered himself out of the floor, clutching the wall for balance and started for the backroom.

“You still sleep down here?”

“It's where I sleep.”  Asra flopped down on a pile of cushions in the corner.

“Look, I'm going to get you some water.  Then I'll be on my way.”

Julian found a mug in the downstairs stillroom and filled it from the tap.  It really wasn't enough, but he supposed it was better than nothing. He returned to the backroom and put the cup down near Asra, who was sprawled on his back across the nest of cushions, eyes closed.  Faust had relocated herself to a small cushion beside him. Julian nodded to her as he started to leave. Then Asra said something.

“Those were my parents.”

“I'm sorry?”

“The two magicians he had executed.  After they built his arm.” Asra wrapped his arms around a pillow.  “I never knew what had happened to them. I just knew they didn't come home.”

Julian worked out the arithmetic.  At best, nine or ten was how old Asra would have been.  Bad enough to lose parents at that age - Julian knew that well enough - and Dema had mentioned Asra used to live on and under the docks.  To be completely alone at that age . . . Julian hadn't really ever thought about what he would have needed to do to survive if Mazelinka hadn't found him and Pasha.  It wasn't a pleasant topic to consider.

“I see her sometimes.  Hear her. I don't know if I'm haunted or mad.  And that red dress! I can live with her wearing it for you.  You're not too bad. But the idea of Lucio having seen her in it...”

“She added onto the top.”

Asra groaned.  “I guess that's better . . . maybe.  I found something. There is a way to summon the dead.”  He changed topics again, continuing to ramble. “But without a body...”

“Drink some water.”

Asra propped himself up on his elbow enough to drain the cup of water  “I know I must sound mad.” He flipped back down and rolled over on his back, hugging the pillow against him.  “But I'm not, Ilya. I'm really not.”

“Try to sleep, Asra.”

Julian was at the door when Asra said something entirely unexpected.  “Thanks. You really aren't too bad.”

He paused in the main room of the shop, leaning against the counter and rubbing his temples.  It had been a long day. He was tired, he was lonely, and he did not feel like walking back to the Palace.  The farther he was from that tangled mess, the better. Suspecting that he'd regret it, Julian climbed the stairs and walked back to the little bedroom in the upstairs apartment.  He took off his boots, tossed his jacket over the back of the chair, and curled up on the bed. It didn't look like Asra had touched it. Julian wrapped himself up in a blanket and clutched a pillow that still smelled like her to his chest, and slowly, miserably managed to fall asleep.

~~~~

Julian woke up to Asra sitting cross legged on the foot of the bed, a cup of tea balanced on one knee, looking far too chipper and collected for someone who had been fall down drunk the prior night.  He would have liked to say that he was surprised.

Asra took a sip of his tea.  “Something you said last night is bothering me.”

“You remember something I said last night?”  That was surprising.

“I wish alcohol made me forget things.  It doesn't.”

Julian sat up, rubbing at his eyes.  Judging from the sun it was mid morning, well past the time he was supposed to have been in Valdemar's hell hole.  He'd worry about their response - if he had enough emotional reserves left to worry with.

“I don't think everyone would have been better off if you died in that first battle.”

“Asra -”

“It's not your fault.  I shouldn't have said it was.”  Asra picked up his tea, unfolded his legs and gracefully rose off the bed.  He took one step closer to the head of the bed, put a hand on Julian's chest and pushed him back down.  “Go back to sleep, Ilya,” he said simply and walked away.

Closing his eyes, Julian complied with the command.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made them [a playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/12125475542/playlist/7kf6XCS2sMB15DUY4tlm8l?si=RR4ecBevR6aRcs4rp-QeOQ). Cause that's just how I work.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are alway appreciated. :)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote myself into too dark a headspace with my main project(s) and needed to take a breather.
> 
> This summer's experiment in fanfic writing has been fascinating when I step back. I'm currently a student in a counseling program. My emphasis is play therapy and expressive arts/narrative therapy, and I'm definitely watching myself cycle through the different stages of the process that I'm reading about for class. Meta, yo. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'm been delighted that a handful of other people have gotten some enjoyment out of my self indulgent little writing project.
> 
> This title shamelessly stolen from St. Vincent.


End file.
